It would have been enough, therefore, for Daniel to be so dangerously wounded. But there was something else besides. Like all who had ever sailed with Daniel, the surgeon, also, had conceived a lively interest in him, and was filled with admiration for his character. Besides that, he knew that his patient alone could solve this great mystery, which puzzled him exceedingly.
Unfortunately, Daniel’s condition was one of those which defy all professional skill, and where all hope depends upon time, nature, and constitution. To try to question him would have been absurd; for he had so far continued delirious. At times he thought he was on board his sloop in the swamps of the Kamboja; but most frequently he imagined himself fighting against enemies bent upon his ruin. The names of Sarah Brandon, Mrs. Brian, and Thomas Elgin, were constantly on his lips, mixed up with imprecations and fearful threats.
For twenty days he remained so; and for twenty days and twenty nights his “man,” Baptist Lefloch, who had caught the murderer, was by his bedside, watching his slightest movement, and ever bending over him tenderly. Not one of those noble daughters of divine wisdom, whom we meet in every part of the globe, wherever there is a sick man to nurse, could have been more patient, more attentive, or more ingenious, than this common sailor. He had put off his shoes, so as to walk more softly; and he came and went on tiptoe, his face full of care and anxiety, preparing draughts, and handling with his huge bony hands, with laughable, but almost touching precautions, the small phials out of which he had to give a spoonful to his patient at stated times.
“I’ll have you appointed head nurse of the navy, Lefloch,” said the old surgeon.
But he shook his head and answered,—
“I would not like the place, commandant. Only, you see, when we were down there on the Kamboja, and Baptist Lefloch was writhing like a worm in the grip of the cholera, and when he was already quite blue and cold, Lieut. Champcey did not send for one of those lazy Annamites to rub him, he came himself, and rubbed him till he brought back the heat and life itself. Now, you see, I want to do some little for him.”
“You would be a great scamp if you did not.”
The surgeon hardly left the wounded man himself. He visited him four or five times a day, once at least every night, and almost every day remained for hours sitting by his bedside, examining the patient, and experiencing, according to the symptoms, the most violent changes from hope to fear, and back again. It was thus he learned a part, at least, of Daniel’s history,—that he was to marry a daughter of Count Ville- Handry, who himself had married an adventuress; and that they had separated him from his betrothed by a forged letter. The doctor’s conjectures were thus confirmed: such cowardly forgers would not hesitate to hire an assassin.
But the worthy surgeon was too deeply impressed with the dignity of his profession to divulge secrets which he had heard by the bedside of a patient. And when the magistrate, devoured by impatience, came to him every three or four days, he always answered,—
“I have nothing new to tell you. It will take weeks yet before you can examine my patient. I am sorry for it, for the sake of Evariste Crochard, surnamed Bagnolet, who must be tired of prison; but he must wait.”